Review of “Living After Midnight: Hard and Heavy Stories”

Living After Midnight contains six short stories named after each author’s favorite heavy metal/hard rock band. Don’t let this discourage you if you aren’t into that type of music, because these stories may have taken their inspiration from the bands, but you don’t have to know anything about them to enjoy these diverse tales of horror.
Spooky Tooth, by Randy Chandler, has a rock and roll journalist interviewing a rock and roll genius who is perhaps a rock and roll werewolf as well. Iron Maiden takes you on a trip on a mysterious, ancient ship filled with mysterious and mythological creatures who cry out to the members of a rock band playing a gig nearby. Black Sabbath tells the tale of the days after the zombie apocalypse has come and went, leaving behind survivors who have nothing to fear but each other. Judas Priest deals with the fate of a young man who seeks protection from any sort of earthly harm, and gets tossed into a war among demons for his troubles. Motorhead is a raw, visceral tale of a man and his snake, out for justice, or perhaps just for blood. Slayer, the final story in this anthology, tells the story of Abercrombie, a man destined to walk the earth with a talisman of the Saint he prays to as he brings down destruction upon everyone he meets.
Each of these stories had their own magic to them, and given the theme, it allowed each other to tinker around and come up with something different at each turn. Demons and devils and angels and mythological creatures abound, along with good old fashion monsters. This is a good variety pack of scary stories for someone looking for just that-a wide assortment of horror with a supernatural bent, which almost all these tales have. I plowed through this book inside of a few hours-it was an easy read, and a satisfying one as well.